March 24, 1999: 20 years ago, the NATO terror-bombing of Yugoslavia began, including attacks on the media center and Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

Heather Cottin: On March 24, 1999, the U.S. led its European NATO allies in a 78-day bombing campaign targeting Serbia in order to destroy Yugoslavia, the last socialist country holding out in Europe. NATO planes bombed hospitals, factories, schools, trains, television stations, bridges and homes, killing thousands of Yugoslavs.

In 2000, the same NATO forces destabilized what remained of Yugoslavia — the republics of Serbia and Montenegro — then overthrew its political leader, Slobodan Milosevic, later imprisoning and trying him in a pro-NATO court in The Hague, Netherlands, for alleged war crimes. Failing in its attempt to convict him, the court case ended when Milosevic died there on March 11, 2006. Many suspect NATO forces had him poisoned.

NATO’s pattern for the destruction of Libya and Syria — and also of Iraq and Afghanistan, with variations — was based on the experience in Yugoslavia:  demonization of a leader, with false charges of “ethnic cleansing” to give a pretext for a NATO “humanitarian intervention,” followed by slaughter of civilians from the air and destruction of the infrastructure.